Official F1 Journal Formula 2 Saturday Round Up- Zandvoort

Sprint Race- VERY VERY WET

There was plenty of drama before the race even started with Championship leader and sprint race pole man Theo Pourchaire's car developing a problem that required a substantial amount of work and despite the start being delayed the pit lane closed before the ART Racing guys could get him fixed and Pourchaire was forced to give up his number 1 grid slot and start from the pit lane, the second race in a row that the championship leader hasn't made it to his pole spot after Fredrik Vesti crashed on his lap to the grid in Spa and didn't start the race in Belgium.  

Sprint Start Grid

1 POU      2 HAD
3 MAR      4 JCO
5 BEA       6 DOO
7 MAL       8 VES
9 HAU      10 CRA
11 MAI      12 NOV
13 BOS     14 DAR
15 LEC      16 IWA
17 VER      18 ACO
19 FIT        20 STA
​21 NIS       22 MAS

The race started behind the safety car with a rolling start, Hadjar lead the field into turn 1 and despite going deep into the corner held on to 1st from a very fast Martins ready to take the position from him. Ollie Bearman made a great move on Juan Manual Correa for 3rd at the first corner while Hauger ended up very wide into the first corner putting 2 wheels on the grass. 

But the racing was short lived and after a big incident between Cush Maini, Jak Crawford and Ralph Boschung the race was Red flagged. While racing hard Maini hit a patch of deep watch on the apex of the corner and lost the rear, which tapped Jak Crawford taking them both out of the race and while both cars crossed the track and the path of other cars, Crawford narrowly avoided being him again but Boschung had no way of avoiding his Campos team mate Maini and both cars hit the wall, one on top of the other.
Boschung was the first man out of the car and went straight to check on both other drivers, despite clearly being in pain himself, both limping and holding his back. Thankfully all 3 drivers escaped the incident uninjured but it was a big scary accident for all 3 of them.

© Autosport 

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© Autosport 

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After a substantial wait for that incident to be cleared and the area repaired the rain started again. The track only got worse and despite the field following the safety car around the lap with the hope of restarting the race, the drivers and safety car driver Bernd Maylander were not happy with the conditions, so with the rain seeing no end soon and the opinions of the drivers and teams the Race Director  chose to not resume the race and end it there at just 4 laps in meaning that NO Championship points would be awarded for this event to any drivers as an insufficient amount of laps were completed without the safety car leading them, much to the benefit of Theo Pourchaire who has not lost any points to championship Rival Fredrik Vesti who was classified 7th. 
So on to the Feature Race tomorrow, with Crawford on Pole and fingers crossed better weather conditions.

Sprint Classification (no points)

1 HAD    
2 MAR
3 BEA
4 JCO
5 MAL
6 DOO
7 VES
8 NOV
9 HAU
10 DAR
11 LEC
12 VER
13 IWA
14 STA
15 FIT
16 ACO
17 NIS             DNF's
18 MAS           CRA
19 POU           MAI
​                        BOS

Joanna Blackmore 
Writer F1 Journal